Sea levels, warming of the surface and upper layer of the oceans, greenhouse
gases and land temperatures all hit a record high in 2014. In addition
to this, glacier melt and tropical storms were also at a high, while
sea ice loss continued. These are the findings from the annual State
of the Climate report, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society. The results are based on the work of 413 independent scientists
from 58 countries.

“This report represents data from around the globe, from hundreds
of scientists and gives us a picture of what happened in 2014,” explained
Thomas Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
who carried out the report, which has been produced every year for the
last 25.

“The variety of indicators shows us how our climate is changing, not
just in temperature but from the depths of the oceans to the outer atmosphere,”
he added. The report also hints at something even more worrying. Even
if greenhouse gas levels were cut immediately, the researchers claim
the warming of the oceans is predicted to continue for centuries and
millennia. It seems we might have reached the tipping point, and crashed
over the edge. More

Earth
has entered sixth mass extinction, warn scientists

Earth has entered its sixth mass extinction with animals now dying out
at 100 times the normal rate, scientists have warned.

Humans have created a toxic mix of habitat loss, pollution and climate
change, which has already led to the loss of at least 77 species of
mammals, 140 types of bird since and 34 amphibians since 1500.

They include creatures like the dodo, Steller’s Sea Cow, the Falkland
Islands wolf, the quagga, the Formosan clouded leopard, the Atlas bear,
the Caspian tiger and the Cape lion.

Scientists at Stanford University in the US claim it is the biggest
loss of species since the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction which
wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. More

Moderately
Cold Temps ‘More Deadly Than Heat Waves’

Heat waves are not as deadly as has been assumed, according to research
that suggests prolonged exposure to moderately cold temperatures kills
more people than scorching or freezing spells.

The study of deaths in 13 countries, published in the Lancet medical
journal, found that cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot
weather, and that premature deaths are more often caused by prolonged
spells of moderate cold than short extreme bursts.

“It’s often assumed that extreme weather causes the majority of deaths,
with most previous research focusing on the effects of extreme heat
waves,” says lead author Dr. Antonio Gasparrini from the London School
of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. More

A new Federal Emergency Management Agency policy requiring states to
address climate change before they can become eligible for grant funding
is drawing fire from congressional Republicans.

The regulations, part of a FEMA State Mitigation Plan Review Guide
issued last month, are not set to take effect until next March. But
lawmakers are demanding an explanation for the rules now.

In a letter to FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate, the lawmakers said
they’re concerned that the agency’s decision will create unnecessary
red tape in the disaster preparedness process.

“As you know, disaster mitigation grants are awarded to state and
local governments after a presidential major disaster declaration,”
they wrote. “These funds are crucial in helping disaster-stricken communities
prepare for future emergencies.” More

Hellacious
Eel-Like Fish Dropping From The Sky In Alaska

It can be hard to go outside in Alaska, but some days it just takes
more courage to leave the house.

Take last week, for example, when residents of Fairbanks reported
seeing several terrifying foot-long eel-like fish scattered around town.

Four have been spotted throughout Fairbanks so far -- one was found
squirming in the parking lot of a thrift store, while someone else found
one in their lawn. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says they're
adult Arctic lampreys and residents have nothing to worry about.

Arctic lampreys are mysterious parasitic fish native to Alaska, yet
they are rarely seen or caught because they live primarily in the mud
of rivers and tributaries throughout the state. The Department of Fish
and Game suspects these ones were dropped by gulls who plucked them
from the nearby Chena River, where the fish spawn. More

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says in March,
the global monthly average for carbon dioxide hit 400.83 parts per million.
That is the first month in modern records that the entire globe broke
400 ppm, reaching levels that haven't been seen in about 2 million years.

"It's both disturbing and daunting," said NOAA chief greenhouse gas
scientist Pieter Tans. "Daunting from the standpoint on how hard it
is to slow this down."

He said it is disturbing because it is happening at a pace so fast
that it seems like an explosion compared to Earth's slow-moving natural
changes. Carbon dioxide isn't just higher, it is increasing at a record
pace, 100 times faster than natural rises in the past, Tans said. More

Algae
Could Help Solve Our Environmental Problems, so Why Aren't We Using
It?

Earlier this month, English design firm ecoLogics Studio drew the attention
of attendees at Expo Milano 2015 (this year's Universal Exhibition,
neé World's Fair) when they set up a working prototype of their newest
invention, the Urban Algae Canopy. With 390 square feet of cushiony
flaps lined with tubes filled with a slurry of green algae and attached
to a series of pumps, the canopies are meant to be the newest revolution
in urban greening, gardening, and even fuel generation.

Programmed to react automatically to weather patterns or to manual
commands from passers-by using a digital interface, the canopy pumps
varied levels of water, air, and nutrients to the algae within it, generating
more photosynthesis and thus more shade and greenery in the sun, or
less when desired. The flaps can be moved about as needed. Providing
dynamic greenery for cities is already a fairly cool invention, but
beyond its aesthetic values, one canopy alone can purportedly suck up
as much carbon dioxide and produce as much oxygen per day as 400,000
square feet of woodlands and generate 330 pounds of algal biomass, 60
percent of which (depending on the type of algae used) can be converted
into food or current engine-compatible biofuels. More

Warning
over aerosol climate fix

Any attempts to engineer the climate are likely to result in "different"
climate change, rather than its elimination, new results suggest.

Prof Ken Caldeira, of Stanford University, presented research at a
major conference on the climate risks and impacts of geoengineering.

These techniques have been hailed by some as a quick fix for climate
change. But the impacts of geoengineering on oceans, the water cycle
and land environments are hotly debated.

Researchers are familiar with the global cooling effects of volcanic
eruptions, seen both historically and even back into the deep past of
the rock record. More

Rising
sea levels threaten lower Napa River

With sea levels rising, the U.S. Geological Survey Bay Area predicts
the lower Napa River could see an increase of 39 inches over the next
100 years, a rise of more than 3 feet. What this means for towns along
the Napa River was the subject of a community meeting at Napa Valley
College this week hosted by the League of Women Voters Napa County.

While rising sea levels will not lead to a flood of biblical proportions,
geomorphologist Jeremy Lowe said king tides that often flood roads will
become more frequent, causing more interruptions in our daily lives.

Fortunately, the Napa River Flood Control Project is intended to decrease
that risk in Napa’s urban areas. Rick Thomasser, operations manager
for the Napa County Flood Control District, said the flood project is
designed to offer protection for an anticipated three feet of water
level increase.

Unfortunately, the flood project still needs another $65 million worth
of floodwalls and pumps — additions that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
is currently unwilling to pay for. More

Environmental groups are sounding the alarm as several states in the
western US seek to ramp up oil and natural gas production through hydraulic
fracturing, potentially disturbing sensitive, federally protected lands.

The Center for Biological Diversity and three other groups based in
Colorado filed a protest against the Bureau of Land Management this
week seeking to stop the federal agency from instituting rules that
would vastly increase the amount of fracked oil and gas produced on
public lands in the state. If the BLM’s rules go through, the number
of fracked wells in north-west Colorado could increase from about 1,800
to 17,000 over the next two decades.

That, environmentalists say, would threaten an area already stressed
from the drying up of the Colorado river.

“The Colorado river system’s endangered fish can’t handle more water
depletions,” John Weisheit, the conservation director of local activist
group Living Rivers, said in a statement. “The river system is already
over-allocated and climate change is making that situation worse. It’s
hard to imagine a more self-destructive policy.” More

Obama
on impact of climate change on his family's health

While his administration announced efforts to highlight links between
climate change and its impact on health, President Obama delved into
his own family's personal medical history in an interview Tuesday with
CBS News, touching on his daughter's early struggles with asthma.

"I've seen how scary it is when your kid comes up to you, your four-year-old,
and says, 'I'm having trouble breathing,'" the president told CBS News'
Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook.

"Malia - early on, when she was young - had asthma," Mr. Obama explained.
"And we had to go to the emergency room once. We had good health insurance,
and we had the capacity to really knock it out early, so that over time,
she was able to not have to carry an inhaler around." More

'Next
Pinatubo' a test of geoengineering

Scientists who study ideas to engineer the climate to mitigate global
warming say we should be ready to deploy an armada of instrumentation
when Earth has its next major volcanic eruption.

Data gathered in the high atmosphere would be invaluable in determining
whether so-called "geoengineering" solutions had any merit at all.

It would have to be an event on the scale of Mount Pinatubo in 1991.

That eruption cooled global temperatures for a couple of years. It
did so by pumping 20 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide high into the
sky above the Philippines. More

Watch
Those K-Cups You’ve Been Trashing Turn Into a Monstrous Problem

Move over, Godzilla. There’s a new monster ravaging the streets, and
it’s covered in K-Cups—those single-serving plastic pods used in Keurig
coffee machines. Not scary enough for you? Alien spacecraft fly through
the air, firing lethal K-Cup “bullets” at people.

At least that’s what’s going down in this invasion parody video from
Mike Hachey, head of Egg Studios, a video production outfit based in
Halifax, Nova Scotia. Hachey is trying to raise awareness of the environmental
impact of the tiny containers, which, like plenty of other plastic waste,
end up in landfills.

Hachey has firsthand experience with the amount of trash a Keurig
machine can generate. Last year he purchased one of the devices for
the 22-person Egg Studios staff to use. More

Scientists
Link Underwater Eruptions to Climate Change

Do fire and ice link up to alter Earth's climate?

The climate-driven rise and fall of sea level during the past million
years matches up with valleys and ridges on the seafloor, suggesting
ice ages influence underwater volcanic eruptions, two new studies reveal.
And because volcanic chains spread across 37,000 miles (59,500 kilometers)
on the ocean floor, the eruptions could pump out enough carbon dioxide
gas to shift planetary temperatures, the study authors suggest.

"Surprisingly, the deep seafloor matters in the long-term climate
cycle," said Maya Tolstoy, lead author of one of the studies and a marine
geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.

New oceanic crust is born at underwater volcanic chains called spreading
ridges, where molten rock rises to fill the gap between moving tectonic
plates. Scientists think that as the plates pull away from spreading
ridges, the new crust cools, cracks and sinks, creating gaps between
the lines of volcanoes (which are carried away from the ridge with the
plate). These parallel volcanic ridges and valleys are some of the most
visible features on Earth's ocean floor. More

U.N.
Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare

conomic Systems: The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global
warming is all about man's stewardship of the environment. But we know
that's not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this.

At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive
secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted
that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from
ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting
ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time,
to change the economic development model that has been reigning for
at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution," she said. More

Pollution
in China May Alter Weather in United States

Humans across the globe are connected now more than ever before; actions
taken on one continent can affect people on another. Now, scientists
from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and the California Institute of
Technology (CIT) are showing this is true even for weather.

New research out of JPL and CIT reveals that during our cold-weather
season, pollution in China is altering weather patterns in the United
States and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Jonathan H. Jiang,
a JPL research scientist, explained to weather.com what this means.

“During the wintertime, human-induced pollution such as coal burning
in many Asian cities can create smog that lasts for weeks,” he wrote
in an e-mail. “Under favorable wind conditions, pollution particles
can be transported downwind across the North Pacific, where winter storms
are prevalent.” More

This
Is What Your City Would Look Like If All The World's Ice Sheets Melt

Portland, Oregon, may not be a coastal city, but if all of the world's
ice sheets melted, it would still end up mostly underwater. In a new
series, Seattle cartographer and urban planner Jeffery Linn mapped out
what Portland and several other cities would look like with maximum
sea level rise.

Each map includes newly named islands and bays, like the "Chula del
Mar" in San Diego. In L.A., the city of Downey has become "Drowney,"
and the airport is "Ex-LAX."

The map also notates where landmarks like Disneyland and the Miracle
Mile would end up in the newly formed bay. The mapmaker was inspired
by a similar map by a San Francisco blogger. "I'd always been fascinated
by what the world would look like with a sea level rise," Linn says.
"I was very impressed with his take on it. So I stole his concept."
More

Study:
Offshore Fault Where The 'Big One' Originates Eerily Quiet

Any parent of a rambunctious youngster can tell you trouble might be
afoot when things go quiet in the playroom. Two independent research
initiatives indicate there is a comparable situation with the Cascadia
earthquake fault zone.

The fault zone expected to generate the next big one lies underwater
between 40 and 80 miles offshore of the Pacific Northwest coastline.
Earthquake scientists have listening posts along the coast from Vancouver
Island to Northern California.

But those onshore seismometers have detected few signs of the grinding
and slipping you would expect to see as one tectonic plate dives beneath
another, with the exception of the junctions on the north and south
ends of what is formally known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone. More

These
11 Cities May Completely Run Out Of Water Sooner Than You Think

For decades scientists have been saying that the United States' lakes,
rivers and aquifers are going to have a hard time quenching the thirst
of a growing population in a warming world.

A recent report from NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Research in
Environmental Sciences does not alleviate those fears. It showed that
nearly one in 10 watersheds in the U.S. is "stressed," with demand for
water exceeding natural supply -- a trend that, researchers say, appears
likely to become the new normal.

"By midcentury, we expect to see less reliable surface water supplies
in several regions of the United States," said Kristen Averyt, associate
director for science at CIRES and one of the authors of the study. “This
is likely to create growing challenges for agriculture, electrical suppliers
and municipalities, as there may be more demand for water and less to
go around.”

And a recent Columbia University Water Center study on water scarcity
in the U.S. showed that it's not just climate change that is putting
stress on water supply, it's also a surging population. Since 1950 there
has been a 99 percent increase in population in the U.S. combined with
a 127 percent increase in water usage. More

Oceans
experiencing largest sea rise in 6,000 years, study says

There are two main forces that can drive sea levels higher. One is something
called thermal expansion, which involves the expansion of ocean water
as it warms. The other is an influx of additional water, ushered into
the sea by melting ice sheets and glaciers. Scientists have long concluded
that sea levels are rising. Just look at Miami. Or the Maldives. They’ve
also discerned that major ice sheets are melting at a faster clip than
previously understood.

What has been less clear, however, is whether the development is recent
or not. Over the last several thousands of years, has the ocean risen
and fallen and risen again? A new study, just published in PNAS, suggests
that the ocean has been surprisingly static since 4,000 B.C..

But that changed 150 years ago. Reconstructing 35,000 years of sea
fluctuations, the study, which researchers say is the most comprehensive
of its kind, found that the oceans are experiencing greater sea rise
than at any time over the last 6,000 years. More

Half
of North American birds in peril from climate change

More than half of birds in the United States and Canada -- a total of
314 species -- are losing critical habitat and food sources as the planet
warms, said a report by the National Audubon Society.

Meanwhile, another annual report called the "State of the Birds 2014,
USA," issued by the 23-member US Committee of the North American Bird
Conservation Initiative, described losses of as much as 46 percent of
birds in deserts and drylands such as Utah, Arizona and New Mexico since
the 1960s.

Common backyard birds are becoming less common, and those who breed
and eat in the coastal wetlands are also struggling.

Birds like the eastern meadowlark and the bobolink have declined by
some 40 percent since 1968, but losses have leveled off since 1990 with
the help of "significant investments in grassland bird conservation,"
said the State of the Birds report. More

Huge
Solar Flare Erupts from Biggest Sunspot in 24 Years

The biggest sunspot on the face of the sun in more than two decades
unleashed a major flare on Friday, the fourth intense solar storm from
the active star in less than a week.

The solar flare occurred Friday afternoon, reaching its peak at 5:41
p.m. EDT (2141 GMT), and triggered a strong radio blackout at the time,
according to the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center. NASA's sun-watching
Solar Dynamics Observatory captured stunning video of the huge solar
flare.

The flare erupted from a giant active sunspot known as AR 12192 and
was classifiedas an X3.1-class solar storm — one of the most powerful
types of solar storms on the sun — but it is not the first time the
sunspot has made its presence known.

"This is the fourth substantial flare from this active region since
Oct. 19," NASA spokesperson Karen Fox wrote in a status update. More

The
Surveillance State Is Looking in the Wrong Direction: The Asteroid Threat

The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was as wide as San Francisco
and taller than Mount Everest. It slashed through the atmosphere 150
times faster than the average passenger jet, hitting the Yucatan Peninsula
with a force 2 million times more powerful than the largest nuclear
weapon ever detonated.

Humanity has watched similar-sized asteroids and comets pass harmlessly
by for millennia. It's only in the last 50 years or so that we've had
missiles and spaceships to help prevent a city-size rock from taking
out, say, Paris.

And yet we’re somehow no better prepared than the dinosaurs were.
Last year, a mere 7,000-ton rock burned up over Chelyabinsk in the Ural
mountains and created shock waves that damaged 7,200 buildings and put
1400 people in the hospital. No one saw it coming. More

Climate
change may cut corn, wheat crop yields

BOSTON — Rising temperatures caused by climate change increase the odds
that corn and wheat yields will slow even as global demand for the crops
for food and fuel increases in the next 10 to 20 years, according to
a study published in Environmental Research Letters.

There is as much as a 10 percent chance the rate of corn yields will
slow and a 5 percent probability for wheat because of human-caused climate
change, said David Lobell, the associate director of the Center on Food
Security and the Environment at Stanford University, and Claudia Tebaldi,
a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colorado.

When anthropogenic climate change is removed from the equation, the
chance crop yield growth will slow falls to about one in 200, according
to a statement from the center in Boulder, Colorado. More

UFO
mystery as 'flaming space rock' falling from sky is feared to be alien
craft

This is the moment a suspected meteorite lit up the Spanish skies with
a trail of fire, sparking fears from panicked people that a burning
UFO was heading for Earth.

Scores of scared residents and holidaymakers called emergency services
reporting sightings of a UFO on fire, while others thought the fireball
was a downed plane.

Space experts examining Sunday's fireball have been helped by a swarm
of DIY footage posted to social media. One seven-second clip shows the
fast ball of light – thought to be a meteorite – speed across the sky
before exploding as it is burnt up by the earth's atmopshere. It was
reminiscent of the stunning moment last year when a 10-ton meteor travelling
at 33,000mph blew up over Russia leaving hundreds injured. More

Studies
Suggest Many Coastal Cities Eventually To Be Abandoned With Antarctic
Ice Collapse

New studies in Science and Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) find that
glaciers in the Amundsen Sea region of the great Antarctic ice sheet
have begun the process of irreversible collapse.

That by itself would raise sea levels 4 feet in the coming centuries.

But more importantly these glaciers act “as a linchpin on the rest
of the [West Antarctic] ice sheet, which contains enough ice to cause”
a total of 12 to 15 feet of global sea level rise, as the University
of Washington news release for the Science study explains.

What most of the media has failed to emphasize is that 1) this is
not a worst-case scenario and 2) failure to curb carbon pollution ASAP
will result in vastly higher levels of sea level rise that devastate
the world’s coastlines. More

The
great American oyster collapse

Willapa Bay is an ideal place to farm oysters.

Vast swathes of the bay, in the northwestern US state of Washington,
are exposed at low tide - making it an ideal place for oyster cultivation.
It's one of the most productive oyster farming areas in the US.

But just over 10 years ago, the dynamic in the bay and other parts
of the Pacific Northwest changed: Oysters started dying off, a development
believed to be linked to climate change.

Dave Nisbet has been in the oyster business since 1975, when he started
growing oysters on a small plot in Willapa Bay. He then opened his own
business. The Nisbet Oyster Company, a family-owned operation, has been
processing oysters since 1978. Nisbet's daughter Kathleen Nisbet-Moncy
has worked every job in the company, and is now the plant manager, overseeing
the processing of nearly one million kilogrammes of oysters a year.
More

Marine ecologist Adriana Vergés emerged from a scuba dive in Tosa Bay
off the coast of southern Japan last week and was amazed at what she'd
seen: A once lush kelp forest had been stripped bare and replaced by
coral.

The bay is hundreds of miles north of the tropics, but now "it feels
like a tropical place," said Vergés, a lecturer at New South Wales University
in Australia.

The undersea world is on the move. Climate change is propelling fish
and other ocean life into what used to be cooler waters, and researchers
are scrambling to understand what effect that is having on their new
neighborhoods. They are finding that the repercussions of the migration
of tropical fish, in particular, are often devastating. Invading tropical
species are stripping kelp forests in Japan, Australia, and the eastern
Mediterranean and chowing down on sea grass in the northern Gulf of
Mexico and Atlantic seaboard. More

Scientists
have worked out the likely cause of that enormous crater in Siberia

The mystery of what caused that gigantic crater in the Yamal Peninsula
of Siberia may have been solved. And the reason is scarier than all
those totally valid theories involving aliens and meteorites.

Andrei Plekhanov, an archaeologist at the Scientific Centre of Arctic
Studies in Salekhard, Russia, visited the massive cavity after it was
discovered by reindeer herders in mid-July.

Plekhanov believes the roughly 100-foot wide hole, which was found
in a region of northern Siberia so remote it is called “the end of the
world,” was caused by an explosion of methane gas, which is normally
trapped in the permafrost. More

Republican
Calls Climate Change A Hoax Because Earth And Mars Have 'Exactly' Same
Temperature

In a condemnatory speech last week against the Obama administration’s
new Environmental Protection Agency carbon emission regulations, Kentucky
state Sen. Brandon Smith (R) claimed that man-made climate change is
scientifically implausible because Mars and Earth share “exactly” the
same temperature.

Smith, the owner of a mining company called Mohawk Energy, argued
that despite the fact that the red planet doesn’t have any coal mines,
Mars and Earth share a temperature. Therefore, Smith reasoned, coal
companies on Earth should be exempt from emission regulations.

According to NASA, the average temperature on Earth is 57 degrees
Fahrenheit -- 138 degrees above Mars' average of -81 degrees. More

River
in China mysteriously turns blood-red

There will be blood!

In a story straight out of Exodus, a river in eastern China has mysteriously
changed to a crimson color.

The river’s plague-like transformation was noticed early Thursday
by residents in Zhejiang province who said they initially noticed a
weird smell coming from the area, ABC News reports. Locals said the
river appeared perfectly fine around 5 a.m. local time, but less than
one hour later, people suddenly noticed the blood-red metamorphosis.

Upon inspection, investigators with the Wenzhou Environmental Protection
Bureau were unable to find any specific causes for the bloody incident.
More

Climate
change could make red hair a thing of the past

REDHEADS could become extinct as Scotland gets sunnier, experts have
claimed.

The gene that causes red hair is thought to be an evolutionary response
to the lack of sun in Scotland.

Redhead colouring allows people to get the maximum vitamin D from
what little sun there is.

Only one to two per cent of the world’s population has red hair but
in Scotland the figure is about 13 per cent, or 650,000 people.

However, the figure could fall dramatically – and even see redheads
die out completely in a few centuries – if predictions that the country’s
climate is set to become much sunnier are true.

Dr Alistair Moffat, boss of genetic testing company ScotlandsDNA,
said: “We think red hair in Scotland, Ireland and the north of England
is adaptation to the climate. We do not get enough sun and have to get
all the vitamin D we can. More

Great
Lakes ice cover from brutal winter could lead to a chilly summer

The Winter of 2013-14 demands that it be remembered.

A relatively cool spring will give way to a colder-than-usual summer
locally, all because of the continuing impacts of the intensely frigid,
snowy winter, scientists said. And at least one Great Lakes ice researcher
thinks that the domino effect could continue into a chilly fall and
an early start to next winter — and beyond.

The reason is the unusually late ice cover that remains on the Great
Lakes. Heading into May, the Great Lakes combined remain 26% ice-covered,
with Lake Superior still more than half-blanketed in ice. By comparison,
at this time last spring the lakes were less than 2% covered with ice.

The remaining levels of ice cover are amazing, said Jia Wang, an ice
climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor.

“This prolonged winter will affect summer temperatures. This summer
will be cold, and then a cooler fall,” he said. More

California
governor links wildfires to climate change

California Gov. Jerry Brown is linking the recent wildfires that blazed
through San Diego County to global warming, saying on Sunday that the
state is on the "front lines" of climate change, which is making its
weather hotter.

Almost a dozen fires caused more than $20 million in damage last week,
and Brown said the drought-stricken state is preparing for its worst
wildfire season ever.

"We're going to deal with nature as best we can, but humanity is on
a collision course with nature," Brown said on ABC.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has responded
to more than 1,500 fires this year, compared with about 800 in an average
year, and the state firefighting agency went to peak staffing in the
first week of April instead of its usual start in mid-May. More

That’s what leading environmental scientists say that Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott has engineered, in less than one year in office.
They say the changes he’s implementing could result in irreversible
damage to some of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.

And they say they are “screaming in the dark” to get the country’s
ultra conservative government to take a more sustainable course, so
far with little luck.

Of course, not everyone agrees with the scientists, or at least with
their priorities. Abbott came to power last September promising to abolish
the country’s landmark carbon and mining taxes, and cut “green tape”
that he said hindered development. More

America’s
power grid at the limit: The road to electrical blackouts

Americans take electricity for granted. It powers our lights, our computers, our
offices, and our industries. But misguided environmental policies are eroding
the reliability of our power system.

Last winter, bitterly cold weather
placed massive stress on the US electrical system -- and the system almost broke.
On January 7 in the midst of the polar vortex, PJM Interconnection, the Regional
Transmission Organization serving the heart of America from New Jersey to Illinois,
experienced a new all-time peak winter load of almost 142,000 megawatts.

Eight of the top ten of PJM’s all-time winter peaks occurred in January 2014.
Heroic efforts by grid operators saved large parts of the nation’s heartland from
blackouts during record-cold temperature days. Nicholas Akins, CEO of American
Electric Power, stated in Congressional testimony, “This country did not just
dodge a bullet -- we dodged a cannon ball.” More

We
should give up tying to save the world from climate change, says James Lovelock

Saving the planet from climate change is ‘beyond our ability’ and we should stop
wasting time trying to tackle global warming, a leading scientist has claimed.

James Lovelock, who first detected CFCs in the atmosphere and proposed the Gaia
hypotheses, claims society should retreat to ‘climate-controlled cities’ and give
up on large expanses of land which will become inhabitable.

Lovelock, who
has just published his latest book A Rough Ride To The Future, claims we should
be ‘strengthening our defences and making a sustainable retreat.’

“We’re
reaching an age in history where you can no longer predict the future with any
hope of success. “We should give up vainglorious attempts to save the world. More

About 13,000 years ago, a chunk of a comet or asteroid hurtled into the atmosphere
at a shallow angle, superheating the atmosphere around it as it careened toward
the surface. The air grew hot enough to ignite plant material and melt rock below
the object's flight path. Within a few microseconds, atmospheric oxygen was consumed
and the freed carbon atoms condensed into nanodiamond crystals.

An air
shock followed several seconds later, lofting these nanodiamonds and other carbon
particles into the atmosphere, spreading them around. Mega mammals starved, unable
to forage on the scorched earth, and human populations dwindled. The shock on
the atmosphere was enough to lower global temperatures for a thousand years.

This is according to a new study of ancient Mexican nanodiamonds, and it's another
salvo in a longstanding ancient-climate dispute. The study bolsters the controversial
argument that an asteroid impact might have chilled the planet during the Younger
Dryas, an abrupt and very short cold interval that started about 12,900 years
back. More

What
will really happen when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts?

Lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is a massive underground reservoir of
magma, capped by the park's famous caldera. 640,000 years ago, a super eruption
rocked the region. What would happen if another such event blasted the park today?
We asked USGS geologist Jake Lowenstern, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone
Volcano Observatory.

Most volcanic activity in Yellowstone would not qualify
as "super eruptions," in which 1,000 km3 or more material is ejected from a volcano.
Lowenstern told io9 that supervolcanoes are "very large, single eruptions" that
usually last for about a week. But, unlike what you'll see in certain television
specials and Hollywood films, even a super eruption at Yellowstone wouldn't endanger
the whole United States. It also wouldn't cause the kind catastrophe you might
expect. More

Experts
Fear Nuclear Famine: “A Disaster So Massive in Scale that No Preparation is Possible”

At last count, there are eight countries in the world that have officially designed,
developed and tested nuclear weapons. Another two (Israel and Iran) deny they
have built or are building such weapons, but the probability that Israel has them
and that Iran is building them is believed by members of the international community
to be extremely high.

That being said, it’s only a matter of time before
a madman at the helm in any of these ten nuclear-armed states decides to push
the button. With the global economy in shambles, the world’s super powers mobilizing
military assets, and hundreds of trillions of dollars in unservicable debt soon
to be realized by the financial community, how long before history rhymes with
previous large-scale events that culminated in the fall of the Roman empire or
the World Wars that devastated tens of millions of lives in the 20th century?

War, it seems, is inevitable. Not just because of the many problems faced by mankind,
but because of the nature of mankind itself. More

1859
solar event would be catastrophic today

On a cool September night in 1859, campers in Colorado were roused from sleep
by a "light so bright that one could easily read common print," as one newspaper
described it. Some of them, confused, got up and began making breakfast.

Farther east, thousands of New Yorkers were rushing onto their roofs and sidewalks
to gaze up at the heavens.

The sky was glowing, ribboned in yellow, white
and crimson.

At the time, it was a dazzling display of nature. Yet if the
same thing happened today, it would be an utter catastrophe.

The auroras
of 1859, known as the "Carrington Event," came after the sun unleashed a large
coronal mass ejection, a burst of charged plasma aimed directly at the Earth.
When the particles hit our magnetosphere, they triggered a fierce geomagnetic
storm that lit up the sky and frazzled communication wires around the world. Telegraphs
in Philadelphia were spitting out "fantastical and unreadable messages," one paper
reported, with some systems unusable for many hours. More

Are
you ready for the Viking Apocalypse? Norse myth predicts world will end this Saturday

We’ve survived the Mayan apocalypse and Y2K, but be afraid – the end of the world
is coming…again.

This time it’s the Viking apocalypse that is allegedly
set to destroy Earth, with Norse mythology claiming the planet will split open
and unleash the inhabitants of Hel on February 22.

According to the Vikings,
Ragnarok is a series of events including the final predicted battle that results
in the death of a number of major gods, the occurrence of various natural disasters
and the subsequent submersion of the world in water.

The wolf Fenrir is
also predicted to break out of his prison, the snake Jormungand will rise out
of the sea and the dragon of the underworld will resurface on Earth to face the
dead heroes of Valhalla – who, of course, have descended from heaven to fight
them. More

Climate
change profs burn skeptical book

Two environmentalism professors at San Jose State University were photographed
hosting their own private book burning party.

The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, sent the book
to the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at SJSU. Department chairperson
Dr. Alison Bridger and assistant professor Dr. Craig Clements eagerly posed for
a photo depicting them applying a lit match to “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism.”

The photo initially appeared on the department’s website with the caption, “This
week we received a deluge of free books from the Heartland Institute… shown above,
Drs. Bridger and Clements test the flammability of the book.” More

Abrupt
Climate Disaster Threat Raises Call for Early Warning System

The threat of sudden climate change disaster—from the poles melting to farmlands
failing—is real and requires an early warning system, an expert panel suggested
on Tuesday.

Looking at "tipping points" for global warming disasters, the
National Research Council panel report on "abrupt" climate impacts finds noteworthy
risks of sharp, sudden sea-level rise, water shortages, and extinctions worldwide
in coming years and decades.

"Climate change is real, it is happening now,
and we need to deal with it," says James White of the University of Colorado,
Boulder, who headed the panel. "Step number one is to recognize the points where
we stand on the threshold of abrupt impacts." More

Waterless
World: China’s ever-expanding desert wasteland

NAIMAN QI, INNER MONGOLIA, China — Over the last three years, San Qinghai has
had to dig four new wells, each one deeper than the last.

The village's
old stone wells used to go down 30 feet. But the 31-year-old Mongolian farmer
and shepherd’s new wells descend 140 feet to reach groundwater.

Squinting
and wearing a ragged gray sweater, San pointed to several acres of dry, brittle
corn behind his house. He said he lost a third of his crop this year.

"The
winters have been getting colder, and there hasn't been much rain," he said. "I'm
worried that the sandstorms will destroy my crops. It's been getting worse."

Long days in the dry air and punishing sun have left deep creases in his leathery
skin, making him look older than his age. After gazing at the field, he tosses
a few dry husks into a horse’s feed trough and plods back home on the village’s
narrow lanes. The streets are soft and thick with sand. More

Government
Report Confirms That A Major Solar Event Will Be A Kill Shot For The United States

An official report prepared by John Kappenman, an independent consultant, was
commissioned by The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2010. The report is summarized
in The JASON report on Impacts of Severe Space Weather on The Electrical Grid,
project number 13119022.

JASON is an independent group of some 60 scientists
that advises the United States government on science and technology that could
have national implications. It is run by the non-profit making MITRE Corporation
in Virginia. There is a massive amount of information in the report which was
published in November 2011.

For the technically minded, transformers are
discussed in detail, highlighting the problems that space weather impacts could,
and does have on them. There are examples from around the world of the damage
caused to electrical grids when a coronal mass ejection hits the Earth. There
are details of different types of space weather, their effects and likely outcomes
of such incidents. More

UN's
2C target will fail to avoid a climate disaster, scientists warn

The limit of 2C of global warming agreed by the world's governments is a "dangerous
target", "foolhardy" and will not avoid the most disastrous consequences of climate
change, new research from a panel of eminent climate scientists warned on Tuesday.

In a new paper, the climate scientist Professor James Hansen and a team of international
experts found the most dangerous effects of a warming climate – sea level rise,
Arctic ice melt, extreme weather – would begin kicking in with a global temperature
rise of 1C.

Allowing warming to reach 2C would be simply too late, Hansen
said. "The case we make is that 2C itself is a very dangerous target to be aiming
for," he told the Guardian. "Society should reassess what are dangers levels,
given the impacts that we have already seen." More

Which
Hollywood-Style Climate Disasters Will Strike in Your Lifetime?

In a just-released report, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has taken an
extensive look at the scary side, the dramatic side…let's face it, the Hollywood
side of global warming.

The new research falls under the heading of "abrupt
climate change": The report examines the doomsday scenarios that have often been
conjured in relation to global warming (frequently in exaggerated blockbuster
films), and seeks to determine how likely they are to occur in the real world.
More